The Miracle of Words

I talk a lot about words, but have you ever considered how amazing they are? We start without language from the womb. We begin to hear sounds from those around us. They're called "phonemes" and they are the distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another. As this learning process continues, we begin to associate a certain series of sounds with a certain concept. You see, words aren't things; they are codes we use to transmit concepts. So without ever getting any real formal education (because what can an infant do with formal education?) we arrive at words. These words have meaning. Some are simple -- "food," "water," "mommy," etc. Some are complex. Think about it. How does a baby learn the complicated idea of "love" from just hearing the word and experiencing the thing? But we do. It's only later that we learn that there are symbols for these sounds that make up words and then we learn how to string those symbols together in a way that we can write them down and transmit ideas beyond the reach of sound. So, here we are with this amazingly complicated system of symbols representing distinctive, nuanced sounds that are put together to mean specific, individual words that are used as a common code of transmitting what's in my mind to your mind. Wow!

Sometimes it works. More often than you might think. Sometimes it doesn't. Years ago I saw a budgie in my desert backyard. Now, for those who don't know, a budgie is a parakeet ... and parakeets aren't native to the desert. Well, eventually he migrated with other birds, but came back the next year. So I wondered, "How long does a budgie live?" In terms of words, I'm pretty sure I just successfully transmitted my question to you. You know what I was asking. It wasn't unclear, vague, ambiguous. But when I typed that question into Google to find the answer, it turned out to be a hard question. "How" refers to a method, so they told me how budgies lived. "Long" could be time (as I intended), but they told me budgies were typically 7-8" long. I found out that "Budgie" was the name of a band and I found out that they were performing "live" in places. Because communication is really a marvel and, yet, we generally do it so easily.

The trick, then, is to remove barriers to understanding. Don't slur those sounds or garble those letters. Don't use words that mean one thing to mean something else. Take into account your audience. That sort of thing. So I was thinking about that scene in the first Incredibles movie. The family is trying to keep their "super" identity quiet, but Mr. Incredible has a tough time sometimes, what with all that tedious job pressure and all. And all the while (it seems) there is this little kid sitting on his tricycle at the end of the driveway watching just as he does something "super." So, at the end, when the family defeats Syndrome right over their own house in an undeniably "super" way, the kid on the tricycle says, "Oh, man ..." -- and we all hold ourcollective breath, then -- "That was totally wicked!!" And we laugh. Because we know that the kid didn't mean, "That was totally evil!" even though that was the word he used. But, did he? I'd guess he grew up with "wicked" meaning "cool, awesome, really wonderful." So I'm picturing the first day you get this kid into your Sunday school class and give him a primer on the gospel. "So, there's Satan and there's God ..." "Who's Satan?" "Oh, he's opposed to God. He's totally wicked." "And God is not?" "Oh, no, God isn't wicked at all." "Okay, got it," the kid goes home thinking. "I want to know that Satan dude 'cause he's really awesome and I want to avoid that boring ol' God person." Yes, he was a cartoon character and, yes, that was just a fantasy exchange, but hopefully I communicated the idea. It is far too easy to mess up words and, therefore, ideas.

In truth, the miracle of language really is a marvel. We make sounds that mean thoughts that others can receive and translate into the same thoughts. You can only imagine what it was like at the tower of Babel when, all of the sudden, the sounds that everyone shared meant something completely different to various individuals and "thought transference" in the form of words came to a screeching halt. Which is why I keep talking about words. No, they're not a thing. No, they're neither good nor bad. But when we twist them and turn them and use and abuse them until we think we know what they mean but, in fact, haven't got a clue, the miracle of words declines. And we seem to be working that anti-miracle with all our might these days.